MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th January, 2021) Sudan's cabinet of ministers on Thursday approved a fiscal budget for 2021 in a meeting with the transitional Sovereignty Council.
According to Acting Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Hiba Mohamed Ali, who spoke after the meeting in a press conference broadcast by state new agency SUNA, the government's budget amounts to 1.08 trillion Sudanese Pounds ($18 billion), 24 percent of which will be directed toward subsidizing basic products and services for the Sudanese people as well as social programs.
The budget was agreed on a day after Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok signed the Abraham Accords to normalize tie with Israel in the company of US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. The two also signed a memorandum of understanding allowing Sudan to receive a $1 billion loan from the US.
This is the first Sudanese budget to be drafted since the country was removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The budget would now be referred to Sudanese parliament for a two chamber vote before the Sovereign Council, the transitional head of state, signs it into law.
